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Chapter 10
Previous Chapter Marcus turned Carter’s card over and over as he sat on the edge of his bed. He had gone to sleep last night thinking about what Carter had said, but ultimately didn’t come to a decision. After getting a full night’s rest though, his head was clear. He had spent the morning preparing the deer he had bagged yesterday, and taking the time to mull over his decision some more. Ultimately, the benefits of going through with this were greater than the risks. He would head out shortly, and drive to town. Even though he had a car, he normally wouldn’t risk driving. As a deserter from the Army, he had a constant warrant for his arrest out. While the police weren’t actively searching for him, if he made the mistake of speeding and getting pulled over, they would see him in their system and haul him in. He headed into the den, and put the card away in his desk. He had memorized the number, so there was no need to carry it around with him. Grabbing his backpack off its hook, he started packing what he needed. A phone, some water, his gun, and a wrapped sandwich he had made last night all went in. Once he got close to the city, he would go the rest of the way on foot to minimize any chances of getting pulled over. He slung on his backpack as he moved to the front door, and put on his boots. Throwing open the front door, he took a deep breath, and stepped out. Heading into his garage, he grabbed his car keys from a nearby hook. The garage door rumbled open as he hit the switch and walked over to his car. It was an old pickup he had gotten for cheap years ago. Not luxurious, but it handled well, and it was a powerful car. He turned the key in the ignition. It sputtered for a few seconds, then finally roared to life. Marcus was impressed it started at all. He hadn’t touched it in months. He pulled out, hit the switch to close the garage door and got on the road to town. The plan was to get to the outskirts of town, and park the car hidden away from plain sight. He would then walk the rest of the way there, and proceed to the bar that Roland Blanco worked out of. The man was a legend in the underworld. He had answers to all of your questions – at a price. If anyone knew anything about Organization MERLIN and their plans, it would be him. * * * Marcus slowed down the car. He had been so lost in thoughts that the drive seemed to have taken just a couple minutes. He was almost at the outskirts of town, but more importantly, there was a man in the middle of the road. He was still a ways off, but Marcus slowed the car to crawl and looked more carefully to see if there was a problem. His blood chilled. The man was wearing the coat he had seen in Carter’s photo yesterday. He drew back his hood, revealing his face, and stared at Marcus’s car, a sinister smile slowly forming. What was this guys plan? Marcus was obviously in the advantageous situation here. He took a deep breath, and pressed the accelerator down. The car roared forward. He was going to run the bastard over. The man turned his body sideways and extended his arm towards Marcus, palm facing skyward. He flicked his fingers upward. A wave of dread washed over Marcus. It was less than a split second later that he started acting, unbuckling his seat belt, and opening the car door even as it hurtled forward. His ability to sense incoming danger and the malice behind attacks was something that he had learned to trust without question, no matter how insane it may seem at the time, and right now, it was telling him his whole car was about to become a danger zone. He threw himself out, and not a moment too soon. A massive, jagged rock formation erupted from the ground, spearing through the front half of his car. Steel crumpled and twisted, glass shattered, and the car came to an instantaneous, gut-wrenching stop. Marcus slammed into the ground, rolling, practically bouncing forward before finally, mercifully, coming to a stop. He gasped in pain as he clambered to his feet. Still woozy from the tumble, he staggered a bit before gaining his balance. He did a quick mental check of his body, grimacing in pain as he realized his left arm had been broken in the tumble. He glanced quickly at what remained of his car, now a twisted abomination of steel, then turned his attention to his attacker, who was striding towards him. Marcus needed to get back into fighting shape right away. He clenched his right hand into a fist, drawing Lifeforce to it. Detecting enemy attacks wasn’t his only ability. He had learned to form Lifeforce and Deathforce many years ago. Lifeforce was a primarily restorative energy used to heal wounds, but it had many other applications, such as creating wards against enemy attacks. He hovered his right hand over his left arm. A soothing light pulsed from his right, and he felt the broken bone reforming and mending itself. He gave his left arm a few swings. Good as new. The MERLIN member was less than 20 feet away now, and he started clapping slowly, as he closed the rest of the distance. “Very well done!” He said, smiling. “I underestimated you. Maybe you’ll be fun.” “Fun? I’ll kill you.” Marcus growled, anger rising. The man chuckled, lowering his gaze and shaking his head. “I assume you know who I am then.” The man said, looking back up. “Organization MERLIN, right?” “Onyx, at your service.” He nodded. An instant later, he was dashing towards Marcus, swinging his fist sideways. Marcus blocked, and countered with his own punch, but Onyx was already dancing back out of range. Marcus chased, darting forward and keeping up a furious barrage of attacks. Onyx was keeping up and turning all of them aside, but he was clearly troubled by the speed and technique guiding Marcus’s attacks. Taking a step away from the fight, Onyx spun, sweeping a roundhouse kick to force Marcus to back off. Marcus leaned back just enough to have it catch nothing but air. Only a second was lost before Marcus continued his onslaught, charging forward on a very easy to read path. It was only a feint though. Onyx punched, and Marcus sprang to the right, snagging Onyx’s outstretched arm in his left armpit. He raised his right elbow, and brought it down hard to break the arm. Rather than flesh and bone though, his elbow impacted onto a rockhard surface. He reeled back in surprise, and broke away to get to a safe distance. As Marcus rubbed his elbow, Onyx pulled up his sleeves, revealing rock armor, still forming to covering the length of his arms. He grinned menacingly at Marcus. “Want to try that again?” Onyx was on the offensive now stepping quickly towards Marcus, who backpedaled to keep his distance and buy time to think. Onyx put on a burst of speed and swung at Marcus. He could only dodge. Trying to block or parry one of these attacks would likely result in broken bones. He simply couldn’t go toe to toe with that kind of armor. There was only one thing he could do. He clenched his left fist, and drew Deathforce to it. Deathforce was an extremely versatile energy that could be used for offense. In its raw form, it was like acid, melting away anything it touched, especially unnaturally constructed or conjured things. He could also refine it to create a more solid substance and create things like weapons, which he was about to do now, but it lost all of its corrosive properties. He focused, materializing a large partisan in his left hand. Marcus stopped his backpedaling, and swung the bladed end of his weapon at Onyx, aiming to cleave him in two. Onyx raised his left arm, blocking the blow and throwing a punch at Marcus. Reading the attack with his Malicesight, Marcus turned his right shoulder back to barely dodge it and get inside Onyx’s guard. He delivered a punch straight to Onyx’s stomach, a grim yet triumphant grin spreading on his face when he felt the full weight of his opponent on his fist. The punch sent Onyx flying back. He landed on his feet, but dropped to one knee as he coughed and gasped for breath. Still on the ground, Onyx raised his left fist, pointing it at Marcus. Marcus dived to his right an instant before the gauntlet exploded, sending hundreds of jagged shards tearing through the air. Clambering to his feet, Marcus looked skyward, feeling danger about to descend from above. He saw Onyx falling towards his position and sprang back. With his still gauntleted right arm, Onyx smashed the ground Marcus had been standing on. He flipped his free left hand up, and pointed rock spikes the size of his forearm burst from the ground, flying up towards Marcus, and circling back down for a second pass when they missed. It was all Marcus could do to dodge the rain of pointed rocks. He scrambled on the ground, weaving his way around the impact spots, making his way to a tree and hiding behind it. He peeked back, seeing the rock spikes pulling themselves out of the ground and returning to Onyx’s side. Marcus leapt out from behind the tree, firing off multiple bolts of pure Deathforce at Onyx, who simply gestured upwards with his fingers. A large rock slid up from the ground into the path of the bolts. They splashed onto the rock, melting it like butter, but failing to penetrate through. Onyx stepped out from behind the rock, and the spikes started flying at Marcus again. Readying his partisan, Marcus charged straight at them. He knocked one away, and then another, but they kept coming. He spun his weapon above his head, knocking away another three, and darting forward to avoid two others. The barrage continued as Onyx had the ones Marcus knocked away circle back and fly in again. Marcus held strong, bashing them all away, but even with his sense and reactions, he started fearing for the worst. He could no longer move ahead, the barrage was so furious. He stood his ground, but it wouldn’t be long before he would begin to tire. An opportunity presented itself. A hole in the approach of the spikes. Marcus leapt skyward through it, flying towards Onyx. The spikes turned, heading straight for him. Unable to dodge while in the air, Marcus focused a barrier around him with Lifeforce. As the spikes closed in on him, he burst the shield outward in a nova, scattering the spikes like a handful of pick-up sticks. Falling towards Onyx, he swung his partisan. Onyx blocked it easily with his rock gauntlet, but Marcus wasn’t done. He let go of his weapon, allowing his momentum to continue carrying him closer. He drew his hunting knife, and as he landed a mere two feet away from Onyx, he stabbed towards him. Onyx sprang back to avoid the attack, and Marcus took a step forward, cocking his left arm back, then throwing the hunting knife at Onyx. Even as Onyx swung his gauntleted arm to knock away the flying knife, Marcus was following up his attack. There was a sea of Deathforce bolts following right behind the knife. There was no way Onyx could call up a rock barrier fast enough. The only direction he could dodge was up, and up he went, leaping as high as he could, hurtling towards the treetops. Marcus took a step back, forming the shape of a gun with his left hand, and pointing it at airborne Onyx. “Gotcha.” Marcus whispered, a fierce grin spreading onto his face. There was one last ability that Marcus had, and that was to absorb the excess energy his opponents left lingering on the battlefield. No one was perfect in using the exact amount of energy needed for their attacks, and Marcus fed on this wasted energy. While he couldn’t use it to perform complex attacks his opponents did, he could perform simple attacks or meld it with his own energies to change their properties. A rock spike burst forth from Marcus’s fingertips, hurtling towards Onyx. There was no way Onyx could dodge in mid-air. Marcus finally had the bastard. Onyx wasn’t giving up though. The ground rumbled as a massive stone pillar sprouted out of the ground, racing up to intercept the spike. It would be no good. Marcus had seen this coming. To counter it, he had surrounded the spike with raw Deathforce, and it would help the projectile pierce through the pillar with ease. He watched intently as the pillar reached Onyx’s height, waiting with bated breath for Onyx to be impaled by the spike. The spike burrowed into the pillar. Nothing could stop it now. And then Onyx kicked off of the pillar, flying to the right as the spike burst through the pillar and pierced the empty air where he had been a split second ago. A chill ran down Marcus’s spine. Onyx had somehow seen through his play. Even that lengthy chain of attacks that kept Onyx on his back foot was not enough to cloud his judgement. Defeating such a foe would be harder than he had thought. Onyx landed gracefully on a large tree branch, dropping to a crouch and looking down at Marcus. “Nice try.” Onyx shouted from his perch high above. He leaped back towards the massive stone pillar he had created, grabbing hold of something when he landed on the side. He pulled a sword made entirely of rock out of the pillar, doing a backflip as he fell away, then tucked into a ball as he spun and finally landed on the ground, going down onto one knee. He stood up, brandishing his new weapon, and pointing it at Marcus. “En garde.” Marcus called his polearm back to him, and set himself into position. The two slowly circled each other, drawing closer. They locked eyes, looking for any weaknesses in each other’s guards. Marcus had already showed his style with his weapon, and Onyx was bringing something new to the table. Onyx would have the advantage in this fight, and it made Marcus nervous, though he was determined not to show weakness. He struck first, quickly stepping forward into range to attack with his longer partisan, while staying out of range of a counterattack from the sword. Onyx blocked, and tried to get in closer, but Marcus was maintained his distance. Their weapons clashed together furiously, Onyx looking for any opportunity to break inside Marcus’s guard. They were at a stalemate, neither able to break through the other. Marcus tried to break up Onyx’s rhythm by firing off several Deathforce spikes, made from the same refined Deathforce as his weapon. Onyx nimbly turned them aside with his sword. He was very skilled with a sword, Marcus had to give him that. Without warning, Onyx pressed forward. Marcus speared his partisan towards Onyx, but he sidestepped the attack with a quick hop. Bracing on the foot he landed on, Onyx pushed back towards Marcus’s weapon, bringing his full weight behind his sword swing, and struck the polearm with a full power attack. Marcus struggled to keep a grip on it as it was tossed aside by Onyx’s powerful blow. Marcus tried to get back and get his guard back up, but he was still off balance and backpedaling was simply too slow. Onyx was already inside his guard and on top of him, swinging his sword to cut Marcus down. Marcus brought his hand forward, and fired off a Deathforce spike. It shot forth, and Onyx was barely able to turn his attack into a block in time. The spike skipped off the sword, impaling itself into a nearby tree. The two broke off from their fight, standing face to face, ten feet apart. Marcus’s nervousness had vanished. It had turned into a fierce determination to win this battle. The trap was set, and Onyx was still oblivious. “As good as you are with that sword, you were better with your rock magic.” Marcus said. Onyx remained silent, but his face twisted in hatred. “You must have used up all of it when you made that massive pillar.” Marcus continued. “And that’s why you won’t be able to do anything about this.” Marcus glanced up. Onyx followed his gaze, craning his neck. Marcus had been preparing for this moment as soon as he had realized Onyx was out of magic. Every spike Marcus had been firing since Onyx drew his sword had been to catch him in this situation. Directly above Onyx was all of those Deathforce spikes, poised to strike. “You’re finished.” Marcus turned his body to his right, drawing his left arm behind him, then swinging it over his head and bringing it down forcefully. The spikes shot down straight at Onyx. There was no gap in their approach, and they were racing down far too fast for Onyx to get away. “Playtime is OVER.” Onyx roared, raising his sword towards the spikes. The sword bloomed into a hemisphere, and stretched down to the ground, completely hiding his body in a shell. The spikes impaled into the rock, but were unable to penetrate. So Onyx did have a little bit of energy left over, Marcus mused. But now it was really done. He had forced out Onyx’s emergency reserve. He strode over to the shell, waiting for Onyx to come back out. Or, if he didn’t want to come out, he could always break it down. “You can’t hide in there forever.” Marcus shouted. No response. He fired off a bolt of pure Deathforce. It splashed onto the shell, and started corroding it, but the rock was reforming itself quicker than it was being corroded away. He prepared an even larger bolt, but before he could fire it, he was hit with a sense of impending doom. His Malicesight was going haywire, telling him a large area around him was about to become a danger zone. Marcus didn’t question it, simply turning and running. There was a low rumbling, and as the danger drew closer, he could sense it better. It was coming from the sky. He looked up, and his heart nearly stopped. A meteor was streaking through the sky towards their battlefield. Dread pierced his heart. Onyx was a monster to have the energy to control a meteor after all that energy use throughout their fight. No. Monster or not, there was no way Onyx pulled a real meteor from orbit. If he did, he would destroy even the nearby city. Onyx must have raised a boulder up into the sky, and used gravity coupled with his own energy to assist in accelerating it into a strike that would devastate a small area. The meteor was seconds away from hitting. Using his Malicesight, Marcus was able to run directly away from the impact site, but he was still in the blast radius. Drawing as much of his remaining Lifeforce as he could, Marcus threw up a shield around himself. The meteor struck with a deafening thump, followed by a soul-shattering roar and the shockwave hit Marcus a split second later, breaking through his shield like it wasn’t even there. The shockwave slammed into him like a truck and he was thrown backwards, carried back like a leaf in a strong wind. His flailing limbs smashed into other flying debris and even trees he flew by them. It was pure luck he didn’t crash his entire body into something. He slammed onto the ground facedown, sliding a couple more feet on the leafy undergrowth. Next Chapter